November 20, 2004

MIRACLE ON VULTURE STREET

UPDATE. He's done it: 52 not out off 63 balls, five fours, one six. First Test 50 in 102 matches. Partnership with Jason Gillespie (43 not out) worth 90 runs.

UPDATE II. Michael Clarke: "To see Glenn McGrath make his first Test 50, that's close to the best thing I've ever seen in cricket."

UPDATE III. Alex Brown: "The Australian players stood as one when McGrath passed 40 for the first time in his 102-Test career."

UPDATE IV. Chloe Saltau: "Earlier, their mouths had dropped open with disbelief when McGrath leaned down on one knee and cleanly whacked the best left-arm spinner in the world, Daniel Vettori, for six over mid-wicket."

UPDATE V. Michael Crutcher: "He was greeted like a double-century maker by disbelieving teammates who formed a guard of honour while the Kiwis walked off stone-faced and wondering what had happened to the Test. Incredibly, the moment wasn't seen in McGrath's home town of Sydney as Channel Nine left the cricket to go to its news coverage."

UPDATE VI. Century partnership; Gillespie reaches his first Test 50; McGrath moves on to 61, and the third-highest score by a number 11.

UPDATE VII. It's all over -- McGrath caught on 64.

UPDATE VIII. Australia's greatest all-rounder takes a wicket in his first over. Can nothing stop this Narromine juggernaut?

UPDATE IX. McGrath has removed the second NZ opener, Mathew Sinclair, in his second over.

Blair you bastard. I've just woken up after watching the first hour of the Test before I went to bed and am now waiting until 2 pm to watch the very good three-hour highlights package on Sky Sports, and have been assiduously avoiding the sports news (and sporty blogs like After Grog Blogs) so I don't hear any mention of the current score.

(But perhaps this is all just wind-up. McGrath getting a 50? Tell him he's dreamin').

I'm sorry, forgive me for having to ask this, but... why is this big news? Is Glenn McGrath the Best Player Never To Have Gone For 50? A long-lasting player, about to retire, and this just puts a topper on the career? A important match against a long-hated rival?

JorgXMcKie - I know, it's like some sort of elaborate code. Didn't they used to do that in WWII - broadcast seemingly random sentences which actually had some military/spy-related meaning? Maybe "52 not out off 63 balls, five fours, one six" actually means "52 of 63 terrorist corpses in local mosque are trip-wired, do not approach, fire at will."

Wonderduck, here's the explanation: in cricket, unlike baseball, you can't have one team of pitchers and another team of batters. You have 11 men on your team, and that's all you have, no substitutions allowed (except to field, but that's another story). So you include some players who are very good at batting and not much good at bowling (~= pitching), and some who are very good at bowling but not much good at batting, as well as some who are good at both (but usually not spectacular at either). You send out your good batsmen to score the runs you need, and when they're all gone you start send out the bowlers, in decreasing order of batting skill. The guy who bats at #11, meaning that you don't send him out to bat until there's literally nobody else available, is the guy who you hope will at least survive for a little while, and if he actually scores a few runs then you're happy for him. These players are known as 'tail enders', or 'bunnies'.

McGrath bats at #11; for him to make 64 runs is practically unheard of, which is why it's such a big deal.

To put Glen Mcgrath's innings into contect you need to look at what he has done so far.

In 115 innings (completed at-bats if you like) he had scored 477 runs, so to score a 61 means that he has added more than 12% to his run totals in one dig. That by any measurement is very impressive.

By comparing that to a recognised batsman, I guess it seems pretty lame, but he most definitely not one of those. Having said that, he has spent a long time in the practice nets, so this achievements surely rates up there for someone playing out of their skin.